When nice voices are suppressed we should arise for them. The late bell hooks was one of many main thinkers and ethical voices of our time. Now, as a robust lady of coloration, feminist, and penetrating critic of racial injustice in America, she is a goal.
Deeply influenced by Buddhism, bell was a frequent contributor to Lion’s Roar journal. I used to be honored to be her pal and infrequently benefited from her wonderful thoughts and large coronary heart. Though she had many solutions, she all the time remained a searcher.
From her conversations with Thich Nhat Hanh, Pema Chödrön, and Sharon Salzberg, to her seminal essay “Towards a Worldwide Tradition of Love,” bell delivered to our pages penetrating evaluation, nice writing, and an uncompromising advocacy of affection because the power that may remodel our lives and our society.
We should all rejoice an awesome voice like bell’s when it’s silenced.
Now this voice for love and justice is among the Black thinkers focused in assaults on the straw man of “vital race principle.” But removed from a menace, the writings of bell hooks are precisely what America wants — sincere evaluation of injustices previous and current, and love and compassion as their reply.
So Lion’s Roar is proud to supply this collection of bell hooks’ writings from our pages, significantly to college students in Florida and elsewhere for whom her reality is outwardly harmful. As a result of we should all rejoice an awesome voice like bell’s when it’s silenced — and wanted greater than ever.
—Melvin McLeod, Editor-in-Chief, Lion’s Roar